Have You Scribbled Today?

I'm having way too much fun! Here is a free online game that we can use with our students (if they can wrestle the mouse away from us!) It works on mouse skills, visual scanning, sequencing, maintaining visual attention, counting skills from 1 - 20, eye-hand coordination and motor speed and accuracy among other skills.

Scribbler

The Pluto Decision and it's Impact on the 21st Century Classroom

Vicki Davis over at Cool Cat Teacher Blog wonders:

How long will it take for the Pluto decision to filter to the average classroom?

I have to say: what an amazing case study this would make for a Web 2.0 researcher! If I were a researcher I would ask these questions:

• How long does it take for this information to get into the classroom?
  
• Is there a difference in the average time it takes for the information to get into classrooms between Internet-connected teachers and non-Internet connected teachers?
• How long does it take for this information to get into textbooks?
• How long does it take for those textbooks to get into classrooms?
• How long is misinformation taught to students as a result of the "information float" on this topic?

Excellent questions to ponder! We are living in a time of knowledge abundance (Will Richardson) and exponential changes (Karl Fisch) and the only ways for learners (both teachers and students) to stay abreast of change is through the tools of the Web 2.0. Yet another reason to support these tools in our classrooms....

Writing Resources for Differentiated Instruction

Today's blog entry is all about free online writing resources for the Differentiated Instruction Classroom. These tools are FREE and are part of the Read/Write Web where content is created online. Please let me know what you think about the resources.

1. WritingFix: Where getting a daily "fix" of writing is more important than fixing your writing. Write EVERY day!

WritingFix, we believe, is the only site of its kind. It was designed by writers, teachers, and students...to spark the imaginations of writers, teachers and students...of all ages.

Three ways to use Writing Fix if you are a Teacher

2. Read/Write/Think - spend hours on this site that supports literacy learning for K-12 but especially notice the "Student Materials Link." When you click on this, you will see a list of resources. Each activity has its own interactive tool. Very Cool!

3. Two Online Word Processor Programs - Do you assign group projects to your students? Do you have students begin the writing process at school and complete it at home or over several days? Do your students sometimes lose track of their completed assignments? Then these sites are worth exploring and sharing with your students!
Writely - a simple, secure document collaboration and publishing tool in beta from Google. (anything from google is worth exploring! You will need to register- takes two seconds)

Writeboard - (You will need to register- takes two seconds)

Write, Share, Revise, Compare, Collaborate.

Catalysts for change

Will Richardson, in Weblogg-ed, pointed people to this chart by Joyce Valenza who detailed how life has changed since she graduated in 1977 with an MLS degree. One example from her chart is, in 1977 our news sources were three news channels, newspapers and weekly news magazines. Currently, we get our news from

24-hour news, 100s of channels on television, websites, blogs, push news, access to global news sources for multiple perspectives, news portals gather content in varying formats.

How times have changed! We have vast amounts of information available literally at our fingertips! What are the implications for learners, educators and media specialists? She details these as well.
Can we keep up with these changes? A better question is, can we afford not to since these changes benefit our students with different learning styles? Digital formats are accessible to our students. Digital materials remove the obstacles to learning for our students with special needs. It is imperative that we stay abreast of change and understand the implications of change so that we can be on the cutting edge of these transformations. Digital information is flexible and accessible and it's time for all information in our classrooms to be available to our students. Let's be catalysts for change, integrate what is available into our classrooms and watch our students flourish.

Portable Scanning

I often suggest no cost/low cost solutions for students with learning differences. But I just picked up an Ambir Travel Scan Pro 600 (from ebay for a fraction of the cost) and tried it out with Abbyy Fine Reader OCR. You can get a 15 day trial version of the OCR from the website - it's considered to be one of the best OCR software programs out there. The upgrade version (a fully functioning version) is available online for $179.
In any case, the results with the Scan Pro were impressive. The OCR was accurate with a sheet of text and with text with two embedded graphics. The user interface was intuitive (important point!) and easy to use. The scanned document was easily exported to Word and retained it's original formatting.
This type of portable scanner is useful for "on the fly" assignments or materials in a typical high school classroom when the materials need to be converted to digital format. It doesn't work for scanning books since it is a sheet-fed scanner. It is remarkably portable, weighs less than a pound and is USB powered. Students can increase their independence when they have access to tools such as this. There may be times when I'll have to recommend this product for particular students.
Have you had any experience with this product?

Online Group Assignment Collaboration

Group projects are frequently assigned in many schools. I know my own two teenagers often have difficulty scheduling time when everyone in the group can meet to work on projects. There are at least two free online tools that support online collaboration that are worth trying.- Writely and Writeboard. I'm spending some time myself playing with the features. Has anyone else used these tools with their students? I appreciate any feedback and other recommendations.

The Power of Digital StoryTelling as Professional Development

Lately my blog entries have been references to other remarkable material I have learned from on the Web. This entry is in that vein as well, as this is a truly inspiring, compelling presentation that I highly recommend viewing.
Karl Fisch's blog included an entry about his frustration with traditional professional development as the new school year begins and his desire to try something new in light of a "visionary" perspective. The resulting PowerPoint Presentation, "Did You Know?" is actually a short but powerful film composed entirely of text and audio. It is an excellent production with "The World is Flat" influences. As he states in his blog, download both the presentation and the audio for full effect.

Sir Ken Robinson Speaks and We MUST Listen

If there is only one thing that you take away from my blog, let it be the chance to hear this keynote address at a TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference in Monterey, California in February. Sir Ken Robinson gave an inspiring and humorous address that must be heard by all individuals who care about and work with students, (This podcast is available online or can be downloaded as a podcast or video podcast.) Among his points are:

"Creativity is as important, in education, as literacy and we should treat it with the same status."

"I believe we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it, or rather, we get educated out of it."

"The consequence is highly talented, brilliant, creative (students) think they are not, because the thing they were good at was not valued but was actually stigmatized."

Robinson believes that we need to radically rethink our view of intelligence. He states that intelligence is diverse, dynamic and distinct and speaks of the "gift of human imagination."

Public education can nurture that gift or stifle it; every educator has the opportunity to encourage the creative process in their classroom and I hope that after listening to this podcast, you will be inspired to do so. As Kathy Sierra says in her blog, "Stop whatever you are doing and watch it now!" It's that transforming.

Presentation Tips or How to Keep Your Audience Awake

Just came across this blog of Damian Conway's presentation at OSCON 2005 (Open Source Conference) and he appears to be a highly respected speaker among the geek population. In any case, his tips for presenters are excellent and I wanted to share them. Make sure you click on "the next entry" to read the entire blog.
One of his points is preparation - at least ten to twenty hours of preparation for each hour of presentation. And inject humor...and stories....and pacing. Be entertaining....and passionate. Know visual literacy and know your audience. OK, how tough can all this be? But when you are passionate about something, you do want to present your information to others. Follow his guidelines and you will improve with each presentation you give.

Differentiated Instruction, Web 2.0 and Learning Differences

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I am passionate about removing the obstacles to learning for students with learning differences and knows that I believe that technology helps to remove those barriers. Today I had the privilege to talk with Vicki Davis of coolcatteacher blogging fame. She is a prolific blogger and writer who pointed me to one of her earlier posts that I link here entitled, "How wikis, podcasts and laptops help students with learning disabilities." As she states,

Any teacher can teach a smart kid -- a "smart kid" with regular learning abilities can learn from an inanimate object -- a book. They can teach themselves on the Internet. Teach them and you are knowledgeable about your subject. But it is the child who has challenges -- you are a true teacher when you accommodate and reach that child.

>Technology and Web 2.0 tools allow teachers to accommodate and reach those students with learning differences. Ten years ago Richard Wanderman wrote an article about how computers change the writing process for students with LDs. I added a number of additional benefits in a document that can be accessed at my wiki.
We do a great disservice to our students with different learning styles when we withhold readily available tools from our instructional technology tool kit. These tools provide the opportunity to differentiate instruction in a number of ways to accommodate all types of learners.
It's all about helping students to access the curriculum and better demonstrate what they know. Vicki gets it right in her blog and with her own experiences. Other teachers can benefit from what she articulates and from the links included in this post. Please feel free to use this information as you prepare for the new school year.

Wikipedia - Wikimania Conference at Harvard Law

The second annual Wikimania conference was held over the weekend at Harvard Law School (much more professional location than last year's conference!) and I'm pleased to report that contributors are stressing quality over quantity. One statistic I found interesting was published in the journal, Nature, which found that there were four errors in Wikipedia for every three errors found in Encyclopedia Britannica. The reputation for inaccuracy may be undeserved after all!
This bodes well for schools. Educators may be more likely to use wikis for their own educational purposes as the reputation for Wikipedia improves.
Two of the significant advantages for the use of wikis over traditional encyclopedias, is first, they are FREE, and second, they can be instantly updated as new information becomes available. In addition, they are a great resource built into the Web 2.0 which allows content creation that is digitally available and accessible to all learners.
Teachers would do well to explore wikis as an instructional tool in their classrooms in the fall. Here are some links to get you started:
Wikis, Ready or Not, by Brian Lamb
Pros and Cons of using a Wiki for Education by Mark Philipson
Wikis by the Encyclopedia of Education Technology
Teachers Share Lessons Learned about Wikis in the Boston Globe, August 4, 2006
(I'm using my wikispace to post articles that I've written.)